Every year in mid-September, people gather in Diamante, Italy to celebrate the famous Calabrian chili pepper. For many, this year’s festival is a celebration of the plant’s heroic survival in the face of extreme heat waves
Chili pepper crops, which aren’t as thirsty as others, fared better but have not escaped the heat unscathed. In Calabria, along with Sicily the largest pepper-producing area in Italy, “The drop in yields this year has been about 20 to 30 percent, ”says Maria Viggiano, co-owner of Valle Lao Agriculture Company, one of the region’s largest chili pepper farms.
When Monaco and his friends first launched the chili pepper festival in Diamante, in 1992, the focus wasn’t so much on the pepper itself. It was on its well-known aphrodisiac effects.“We built a phallus that was about three meters tall,” says Monaco. It was only when chili peppers reached poorer classes that the spice really started to be appreciated. Many people in southern regions of Italy, including Calabria, did not eat meat and were limited to vegetables like eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes. Chilis provided the perfect condiment to give these vegetables a kick of flavor, says Monaco.
There is a limit to the chili plant’s toughness, though. If temperatures stay high for too long, plants will often wilt, discolor, and eventually die, even if they have enough water, says Viggiano, who saw that happen in her own fields.
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